}incorporating more and more matter and energy into itself. Life has continued
}in its steady process of becoming increasingly more complex and intelligent,

Steady? Stephen Jay Gould cue. Mammal brain/body ratios have been
increasing in the Tertiary, true; I don't know if dinosaurs or birds
exhibit(ed) the same pattern.

} new, complex systems develop, older systems which once flourished become less
} able to maintain themselves in their environment of more advanced and robust

I've seen a remark that prokaryotes don't seem to have changed much in
the past gigayear. I don't know what backed up the comment, but it
seems plausible to me for many (not all) areas, considering 3 gigayears
of prokaryotic generations.

And then there's all this allegedly junk DNA.

} intelligent systems. It seems that the nature of life and intelligence is to
} spread itself, to grow, and to become more than it is right now.

The nature of life is certainly to spread itself. Whether that's the
nature of intelligence depends on how you view the Great Silence.
Arguably the capstone for this century's work -- Godel's Theorem,
Turing's Halting Problem, possibly something else -- would be the
discovery that intelligence ends up destroying itself[1].

} powerful, old ways of doing things will become obsolete and will be discarded
} by humanity in favor of more intelligent and beautiful ways of being.

What's that about there being more people who know blacksmithing now
than there ever were when people actually needed horses?

} Technology is life, in a new, more advanced form. The technological
} Life is transforming itself into more intelligent and robust forms,

Okay, who here reads comp.risks or the RISKS mailing list? Should
probably be mandatory reading for extropians, just to see the other side
of spontaneous systems, at least in technology. Robust, hah. Our
personal robustness probably comes as much from having trillions of
cells as from being self-repairing; it takes a long time for enough
cells to croak to bring down the system.

} ecosystems are growing and evolving very rapidly. Technology is not a threat
} to life, as many people view it. Technology is a form of life. It grew

Predation isn't a threat to life either. Just a threat to somebody's
life. Oddly enough, somebody tends to complain. This would support
your self-transformation argument, though.

} over the past few billion years, it seems that life is intent on continually
} improving itself.

Generally so that it can eat some other life.

} alive, you must live; you must transform and transcend yourself along

Tell the deep earth archaea.

[1] Not that _I_ believe this. But I couldn't see the dawn today
because of clouds, so I don't see why I should let anyone else
stargaze. Hi Eugene!